Lawsuit seeks to ban sale of Oreos to children in California
Nabisco taken to task over trans fat's effects

Kim Severson, Chronicle Staff Writer   Monday, May 12, 2003   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oreo cookies should be banned from sale to children in California, according to a lawsuit filed by a San Francisco attorney who claims that trans fat -- the stuff that makes the chocolate cookies crisp and their filling creamy -- is so dangerous children shouldn't eat it.

Stephen Joseph, who filed the suit against Nabisco last week in Marin County Superior Court, is a public interest lawyer who last battled the city to remove graffiti from traffic signs.

He took up the trans fat battle after reading about the dangerous artificial fat in several stories published by The Chronicle that showed how trans fat is hidden in many of the popular snack foods Americans eat. Joseph also believes his father's death from heart disease was caused in part by a lifelong diet of margarine and other foods made from trans fat.

The suit, the first of its kind in the country, asks for an injunction ordering Kraft Foods to desist from selling Nabisco Oreo Cookies to children in California, because the cookies are made with partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, also called trans fat.

Partially hydrogenated oil is in about 40 percent of the food on grocery store shelves, including most cookies, crackers and microwave popcorn, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

But doctors and government researchers believe it is linked to several debilitating diseases and might be one of the worst ingredients in the American diet -- in part because we eat so much of it without knowing.

The Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, last summer confirmed that trans fat is directly associated with heart disease and increases in LDL cholesterol, the kind that can clog arteries. Because of that, the institute report said there is no safe amount of trans fat in the diet.

Prompted by those findings, and after being petitioned by health advocates, the Food and Drug Administration decided to force food manufacturers to list trans fat among the other fats and nutrients printed on the side of food packages. But the rule has been challenged by food manufacturers. A final version is pending.

As it stands, U.S. consumers have no idea how much trans fat is in food because it isn't required on nutrition labels. Even products marked "low in cholesterol" or "low in saturated fat" might have high levels of trans fat.

Providing information about trans fat on labels could prevent 7,600 to 17,100 cases of coronary heart disease and 2,500 to 5,600 deaths every year -- not only because people would be able to choose healthier foods but because manufacturers could choose to reduce trans fat amounts rather than list high levels on nutrition panels, the FDA has estimated.

The Oreo lawsuit differs from consumer lawsuits against tobacco, and more recently, fast-food giant McDonald's, Joseph said.

"Tobacco is well known as an unsafe product. Trans fat is not the same thing at all. Very few people know about it," he said.

Joseph said his suit is about the hidden nature of trans fat and the marketing to children.

That's what makes it different from a class-action suit filed earlier this year against McDonald's on behalf of an obese New York man. (That suit was thrown out in February.) Joseph's suit does not focus on obesity or on the choices adults make when they eat, he said.

Legally, Joseph is relying on a provision in California law that says companies aren't liable for a commonly used but unhealthy product if it is well-known in the community that the product is unsafe.

"But this product, trans fat, is not commonly known to be unsafe," he said. "That's why trans fat is a far stronger case than tobacco or McDonald's because people know those are dangerous."

In his suit, Joseph cites the Hanover, N.J., company's Nabiscoworld Web site, with its games for children.

In particular, he mentions a school-based program called the Oreo On-line Project, which involves stacking Oreos as high as possible without toppling the tower. In 2002, more than 326 schools and classes around the country participated, according to the Oreo Web site.

"This is a FUN way to teach your students math, measurement, working as a team and more," the Web site says.

Nabisco officials, who Joseph said will likely be served with the suit this week, weren't immediately available for comment. They will have 30 days from the May 5 filing date to respond.

State Sen. Debra Bowen, a leader in state nutrition-reform legislation, called Joseph's choice of the California product liability law to go after food makers who use trans fat a unique approach.

"Anything that brings people's attention to how dangerous and unhealthy trans fat can be is probably a good idea, because most people who go to the grocery store and see a bag of cookies or chips pitched as 'low fat' probably assume fat is fat," she said. "As the FDA confirmed last year, that's definitely not the case when it comes to trans fat."

Joseph, a former Washington, D.C., lobbyist who has been practicing law since 1980, has worked on several other business issues, including tax credits, aviation and energy and successfully sued ITT. He most recently formed S.F. Graffiti Busters and sued the Department of Parking and Traffic to try to get the agency to remove graffiti from its parking and traffic signs.

In addition to the Oreo suit, he has formed a nonprofit corporation called BanTransFats.com, Inc. and has printed T-shirts that read, "Don't Partially Hydrogenate Me."

The Associated Press contributed to this report. / E-mail Kim Severson at [email protected].

Dang, they gonna get carded for Oreos in CA now? hahahahaha

 Another nutcase on the loose. [whacko]

First hot dogs and butter in history books and now this?

Whats next?

Boy, I cannot wait to get the hell out of this country and move to America.

OH NO!  I've been eating Oreos for over four decades!  

Between you & me, these people are starting to annoy me.  

Cool!!

A black (and white [;)] ) market for Oreos in CA.

I'm gonna get rich! [bounce]

Now Selling - [b]Preban Oreos[/b]

Scene

Fat lady furtively walking down a dingy back alley somewhere in CA late at night.  Obviously suffering from 'the munchies'...
A man in a trench coat steps out from behind a dumpster and says:

[man] "Yo lady, you bring the cash?"

[woman] "Y-y-y-yes..."

[man] "$100 for 2 packages of da 'doublestuff' right?"

[woman] nods dumbly

[man] "Alright, you leave the money at your feet and step back 20 paces, I'll take the money and leave the cookies.  REMEMBER!  You never saw me if you know what's not good for you and where to keep getting it..."

End Scene

Now why am I not surprised.[whacko]

Well those small gel candy with fruits ( lychee, mango etc... ) are banned from the UNited States already I'm not surprised.

[img]http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/dailypix/2001/Aug/17/ln17a.jpg[/img]

[url]http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2001/Aug/17/ln/ln17a.html[/url]

I swear I told everyone here back then to get their preban candy.

Some family is suing the candy manufacturer for the choking death of their kid.  Maybe they should've inspected the candy first.  Of course we all know they will get millions.  

More fleecing going on around here and the company they're suing is in Taiwan.  Pretty good how lawsuits see no boundaries.

Right out of SF [strike]looney[/strike] central:

[url]http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/05/12/MN209384.DTL[/url]

Clipped from another site:

[qwuote]Every 5 days in the United States, a child dies from choking on foods such as [red]hot dogs, candy, nuts, and grapes. [/red]Lychee-flavored gel candy, a popular product in Asian food markets, may be an especially lethal snack for infants and children because of its resistance to dissolving in the throat.
[/quote]

So why the fck are these not banned yet?  Probably because most or all of those gel candies were imported from Asia.

I didn't know hot dogs dissolve in the throat.  I don't eat that crap anymore but I can't recall if they ever dissolved in my throat.

Fear not for there is already a "loophole" which can be exploited.

Safeway makes those "Tuxedo" Oreo look-alike cookies.  They taste pretty much the same as Oreo.  But Safeway don't make those seasonal special's like Oreo does, white fudge covered etc...

I wonder if these are preban or postban?

[url]http://shop.store.yahoo.com/bvkmall/lychee.html[/url]

[img]http://store2.yimg.com/I/bvkmall_1741_8309476[/img]

Some gel makers found a loophole and made the candy in different shapes and configs.  Me, I still prefer the original preban variant.

[url=http://www.cockeyed.com/inside/oreos/oreos.html][b]How much is inside other stuff?[/b][/url]

[img]http://www.cockeyed.com/inside/oreos/oreos01.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.cockeyed.com/inside/oreos/oreos10.jpg[/img][img]http://www.cockeyed.com/inside/oreos/oreos18.jpg[/img]

Is that your blonde chick g-friend?

[OreosNazi] NO OREOS FOR YOU! [/OreosNazi]

NsB

Umm...[b]BATTLED[/b] the city to remove [b]GRAFFITI[/b] from traffic signs?

Does that sound like something you would normally have to BATTLE with the city over?
strange.

[b]edited to add: THEY CAN HAVE MY OREOS, WHEN THE PRY THEM FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS !!!![/b]

Gaydar machine is about to self-destruct...

[rolleyes] Ban these cookies now! For the sake of the children.[rolleyes]

I always wanted to do one of those.

hmmm...
Carbohydrates are the real problem here....
but still - the parents should be able to "parent" not the nanny government

Hydrogenated oils are a product of the massive agro-industrial complex here and abroad.  Why hydrogenate?  Such oils, treated to become fats, have a longer shelf-life and are "easier" to handle.  

With aromatic preservatives like BHA and TBHQ, rancidity and storage problems are a thing of the past.  You should have noticed many food products that once used hydrogenated oils are now using virgin oils as non-invasive preservatives are used.  Frito chips are one example...they are now packaged in nitrogen gas using a non-porous packaging...only preservative is salt.

The TFA alert is no scare...there is plenty of evidence showing a definite health hazard but I doubt anyone can blame Oreo cookies alone.  Even Triscuit crackers are full of it.  What is next, coffee creamer?  Yes, its HIGHLY hydrogenated...

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE JOKING!!!


I am now EVEN more ashamed to have been born in CA!

my plans to move to PA got delayed by about 6 months to a year...
I CANNOT get out of this looney state fast enough!

I beg to differ. The real problem here is a lack of mental capacity and capability. If you really want to get down to it, its not the carbohydrates that are the problem but all of the fat-assed little porkers who woof down a bag while sipping on a 2L of mountain dew while playing their Xbox while mommy & daddy continue in their downward spiral of self-adsorption.

I see the sucker jury just awarded the family $16,000,000.00+, as anticipated.

Why not sue the USFDA for allowing importation of the dangerous Taiwanese made snacks?[whacko]

The .gov got more money than any candy company.

That's one of the things I LOVE about living in CA......There is absolutely positively no lack for entertainment!!  It truly IS the entertainment state!

I don't know what the world is coming to when people start questioning the lethality of Oreos!

Don't people have something better to do???

I was referring to the Diabetes part of the article.  You can see from my original post that I think the parents should be responsible.
The Socialist Nanny State of Kalifornistan must fall!.